Okay. Played a little bit of Rome and started whooping ass with triarii and principe armies.
Now play the Kingdom of Parthia. That, my friends, SUCKS. I’ve managed to kill Armenia, make it to the Mediterranean, take a couple of cities from the Seleucids, work on killing the Bactrians. My armies consist of a general’s heavy cavalry, archers, and non-phalanx spearmen.
My question stems from this. This is pretty much ALL I’ve got for an army. I find that I can get more lopsided victories when I hire a lot of mercenaries, which gets mighty expensive. After I conquer a foreign city, Can I build their units? How? In my predicament (being forced to use masses of shitty soldiers) am I better off waiting until my technology develops (and theirs as well, where they very well hold another advantage) or working like a dog and kicking as much ass as I possibly can now (when I can still win with slightly inferior troops)?
Eventually, I want to use every civilization…you know…just for the fuck of it. I’ve erased my Roman one and am working only on this Parthian one.
As you conquer other areas, you can use “Area of Recruitment” units. These are the troops you can produce out of the “Phase 2” and “Phase 3” buildings that precede provincial barracks. Some of these are pretty good, and others are nothing to write home about. I’m really not sure what sort of AoR units you’ll pick up as you move south, but sooner or later you should pick up some decent infantry.
I often wish I could keep going as well (ok, I wish that there was a massive game that allowed me to keep playing right into MTW2, with an add on for the Napoleonic wars… ). I may give that a try, though I doubt there will be much left to conquere after about 50 BC.
As for the assertion that one need only build an Imperial Palace in Italy…I’ve done that. I have two in fact. And my population in Rome is something like 30k (far short of the million odd that were ACTUALLY in Rome IIRC). So I think something isn’t working right.
Having played each faction in the plain vanilla version of the game I can state quite easily that I NEVER had a problem getting the reforms…usually before 200 BC IIRC.
Anyway, appreciate you doing the research Grossbottom…if you find any more interesting tidbits by all means post them here.
The short answer is yes…you can get SOME of their units when you conquere their cities. I THINK it has to do with the level of development in the city prior to you capturing it. Of course, in the TR mod version you can’t build ANY units when you first capture a town…even if its got all the military buildings already built. You have to first build your level I, II and III buildings to integrate it into your empire. I’ve noticed that you sometimes get lower level units (again, depending on what military buildings are in the town when you take it) at level II. I haven’t played the Kingdom of Parthia, but I’ve played several others and they all got regional units…so it shouldn’t be any different. I kind of like this…in the plain vanilla version you basically got what you got with little or no variation.
-XT
So, in addition to your reply, xtisme, do you think I should sit tight and wait for them to get better technology so I can use it or should I take them out as soon as possible? Keep in mind that my infantry’s BEST is “light infantry” (non-phalanx) spearmen.
This is one of those instances where you CAN do something…but its probably not wise TOO do it. I actually did this for a while…and I was so starved for money that I ended up getting rid of the unit eventually. Maybe once I have Seleucidi in my grubby palms it will be a different story…
I’m currently playing Bactria, and my best phalanx unit is quite good. I got both Pezoi and Agema right off the bat…and though they are listed as ‘light’ I’ve put them up against silver/gold shield phalanx from Seluecid and they have done very well. As for the Elephants, your capital city of Alexandria Herat makes something called Elephantes…basically un-armored elephants with archers on top. Myself, though I can make them I can’t afford the 3k upkeep per turn…so I have none atm. You get a rather nice armored horse unit though (same as some of the other nations…still nice unit), the Kataphraktoi. Though slow, they have a nice archery ranged attack…and once they start the charge I haven’t seen much that can withstand the initial shock (of course, AFTER that shock they are painfully slow to get moving again). I have two of those in my main field army, and two light horse (and of course the generals cavalry escort) and so far it works out almost as good as having elephants. Don’t get me wrong, I still WANT those elephants damn it!
I wouldn’t sit tight at all as the Bactria…in fact, I didn’t. I picked off all the rebel cities around me (there were 6 I could get too before the other guys put their oar in). The only trouble was the Indian Elephants they all had…but I used a bunch of skirmishers, and since the elephants are unarmored I could always drive them off when they closed with my battle line. After getting all the neutral/rebel cities I then went to war with the Seleucids and picked off 4 of their fronteer cities…no sweat. Then I marched my main field army west along the coast and fought a series of pitched battles before taking Susa and Seleuceia. THats where I am in the game atm.
Dude, Macedon cheats like a little bitch. There’s no way they’re legitimately paying for all these armies.
Anyway, how do you use elephants in combat? I hired a squad of them in Greece but didn’t know what to do with them. They seemed too slow for a flanking maneuver, and the get-enraged factor kept me from putting them in my infantry line. So I just charged them headfirst into the enemy ranks, got a bunch of dead elephants and then survivors went beserk and spent the rest of the battle humping a tree. After the battle, the stats said they only killed 57?
They don’t do many kills, but they disrupt battle likes like nothing else.
When you can, the best way to use them is to get them on the flank of your enemy’s main line, and just run them down to the center right before your troops are about to hit theirs. Their formations get disrupted, they panic, and your attacking troops just slaughter them. I did this perfectly, once, in a battle where the computer had like 1500 infantry… and I got the whole army to route within like 15 seconds of a perfectly coordinated attack.
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Anyway, how do you use elephants in combat? I hired a squad of them in Greece but didn’t know what to do with them. They seemed too slow for a flanking maneuver, and the get-enraged factor kept me from putting them in my infantry line. So I just charged them headfirst into the enemy ranks, got a bunch of dead elephants and then survivors went beserk and spent the rest of the battle humping a tree. After the battle, the stats said they only killed 57?
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Naw, there is a better way. For one thing there is no great rush. If your army is so weak that it can’t hold up for more than a few minutes you are lost already…and elephants aren’t going to save you anyway. As SenorBeef says, the key is to get them on the flank and then charge them in. Myself, I usually want until their battle line is fully engaged with my own. At that point the only thing in the enemies rear is usually only skirmisher/ranged units and perhaps their heavy cavalry type units. I then send my elephants onto one of the flanks supported by my own cavalry units (to fend off any spoiling attacks, or more importantely to fend off any skirmishers or archers shooting fire arrows). When you get them in position you launch them down the line…they will basically crash through each enemy formation, at the minimum disrupting them for several moments (and causing your own troops to do more damage for that time). However, usually what happes is that the enemy formations route as soon as the elephants hit (sometimes even BEFORE they hit), and if you do it right you can set off a chain reaction that causes a large portion of the army to route. Thats when its nice that you ALSO have your own cavalry on the flank, as they can then be best employed in the ‘bug hunt’ stage of the battle…before the enemy formations even have a chance to reform.
Long and the short is…for me, elephants are dead useful. Oh, they require some micro management, no doubt…but then so does cavalry if you want to keep them intact. The biggest problem with them is…in this mod they are DAMN expensive. As I said, I STILL can’t afford them with my Bactria army…and I have half the Seleucid nation at this point. When I played the Seleucids I had exactly 2 elephant regiments the entire game…and there were times when I was seriously looking to disband them if I didn’t get some breaks soon.
In my game, Macedon is rather expansive. They’ve taken most of their land straight north. I’ve killed the Armenians and Bactrians and occupied both their lands. I’ve taken a few chunks out of Seleucid territory and I’m working my way towards Turkey. I’ve even hopped on a boat and knocked off the territory that looks like a clit above Turkey (I want to say it’s Crimea). I’ve FINALLY made it to the Mediterranean and get from about 3 to 9 thousand bucks per turn.
The big shift in territory happened when I splurged on mercenaries. I got some hoplites, some heavy infantry, some heavy ponies. Yeah, it was expensive, but I absolutely abused the Seleucids and think I may have been able to sever the eastern side of their empire from the western side. They should be kittens as soon as I sweep through the east. The Macedonians (allies) and the Samartians (also allies) went to war. I figured I’d side with the Macedonians, because they’re going to be my future. I’m contemplating killing my past allies, the Samartians so the Macedonians don’t get ALL that land.
Gah, Macedon is finally starting to break. I’ve got four full stack army groups fighting north into the mountains (I took the southern peninsula in my initial assault), and one stack of light Spanish infantry taking out the dregs. Between them I’ve killed 20-25 full stack Macedonian armies. I’ll have to try the elephants again when I can get some, thanks for the tips.
Taking down the Germans has also given me access to a trickle of awesome Sarmatian mercs. Horse archers, woo! Bad day to be a phalanx when I get some of those to the southern theater. And my Adopt-a-Gaul program is starting to revitalize my flagging Imperial bloodline, and is wonderful for disposing of all that cash and keeping my treasury under 50k.
Not that this has anything to do with RTW or the mod…but I just saw the new trailer for MTW2 and thought I’d post a link here in case anyone else hasn’t seen it yet.
Normally its my son who does this for me. Thats why I learned to have a temp game as well as a main save game. Also, the game itself autosaves every turn so sometimes you can recover that way. However, if you over wrote your main save and then played as another nation…yeah, you are screwed.
). I may give that a try, though I doubt there will be much left to conquere after about 50 BC.
I actually did this for a while…and I was so starved for money that I ended up getting rid of the unit eventually. Maybe once I have Seleucidi in my grubby palms it will be a different story…